I-Corps: 3D Microfluidic Cell Arrays for high throughput drug screening in tumor/tissue microenvironment

研究小组开发了一种三维（3D）微流体细胞阵列（microFCA）的原型，以更好地模拟体内肿瘤微环境。水凝胶中的癌细胞和模拟血管中的微血管内皮细胞的共培养能够模拟微血管和嵌入细胞外基质的癌细胞之间的体内空间关系。这项技术，在我们的3D microFCA中用患者的活检样本体外重建模拟血管的微肿瘤阵列，可以让肿瘤学家在一开始就测试不同的癌症治疗方法，并选择一种针对癌细胞效率最高、对健康组织毒性最低的治疗方法。该技术将有助于进一步系统地了解细胞死亡信号通路中肿瘤对抗癌药物的动态反应，从而可以在体外高通量平台上跨光谱研究抗癌药物的分子作用机制。这项技术的进一步发展可能会导致更好地个性化抗癌药物的能力，包括通过专利为患者提供化疗治疗。这种非侵入性设备将与活检样本结合使用，以找到最有效的抗癌药物。在疾病的初始阶段找到“正确”的治疗方法可能会导致更有效的治疗方法，并使更大的医疗保健系统受益，因为它将有助于消除目前确定哪种药物最有效的“试验和错误”方法。此外，该技术可以扩大规模，并适用于测试制药行业的新型治疗剂。

The research team has developed a prototype of three dimensional (3D) microfluidic cell arrays(microFCA) to better mimic in vivo tumor microenvironment. The co-culture of cancer cells in hydrogel and microvascular endothelial cells in simulated blood vessels has the ability to mimic the in vivo spatial relationship between microvessels and cancer cells embedded in an extra-cellular matrix. This technology, micro-tumor arrays with simulated blood vessels reconstructed in vitro in our 3D microFCA with patients' biopsy samples, can allow oncologists to test different cancer treatments at the outset and select one with the highest efficiency of targeting cancer cells with lowest toxicity to the healthy tissues. The technology will help to further knowledge of dynamic tumor responses to anti-cancer drugs systematically in cell death signaling pathways, so that the molecular mechanism(s) of action of anti-cancer drugs can be investigated in vitro across a spectrum on a high throughput platform.Further development of this technology may lead to the ability to better personalize anti-cancer drugs including chemotherapy treatment on a patient by patent basis. The non-invasive device would be used in conjunction with biopsy samples to find the most efficient anti-cancer drug. Finding the "right" treatment in initial stages of the disease could result in more effective treatments and benefits to the larger healthcare systems as it would help to eliminate the current "trial and error" method of determining which drugs are most effective. Additionally, the technology could be scaled up and adapted to test novel therapeutic agents for the pharmaceutical industry.